A Valley Without Wind 50% off on Steam, headed for graphical overhaul

A Valley Without Wind is cheap as chips at the moment, and if you nab it now, you’ll be ready for the huge graphical re-tool indie developer Arcen Games is planning on.

In a lengthy blog post, founder Chris Park revealed the company’s plans to completely redo much of the game’s much-criticised art.

The stylised graphics were a sore point among reviewers, and Park believes the art was a significant contributing factor to AVWW’s lower sales. As a result, the team has put gameplay expansion plans on hold, and will instead release a major art redo by third-party Heavy Cat as update 1.3. The image above is more cartoony than the final result, but a far cry from the current stripped-back look.

Park admitted that Arcen is tightening its belt a little and has had to cut back other plans for AVWW in favour of other projects; although the game’s sales broke company records at launch, following Diablo III’s release and the Steam Summer Sales, new purchases have dropped off.

A Valley Without Wind is a very difficult game to describe; it combines side-scrolling action platforming, alá Metroid; strategic world map play; resource gathering and crafting; boss battles and raids; and expanding a home base. It also has a whole suite of super neat features like randomly generated landscapes, perma-death for characters resulting in graves in your village, and a constantly expanding line up of magic.

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